I remember seeing this quote a month ago.
A wife who loses a Husband is called a Widow
A Husband who loses a Wife is called a Widower
A Child who loses a Parent is called an Orphan
There is no word for a Parent who loses a Child
Thats how awful the loss is.
I thought it was so profound. I thought, there is also no word for losing a sibling. And I walked that too. I remember thinking to send it to my mom. I never got around to it. And now we have both lost a daughter. Right now I wonder if it would be worse to have had her and lost her at 28. If it's easier I never got to love her movements and personality longer than 8 months.
We will both carry grief over loss for the rest of our years. Both for Kimmy. Both for Anna. For a Mother, a daughter, a sister, a grand daughter.
I just never imagined I could be walking this road. And now it feels like things were popping up for the last month, for the first time. Seeing it now sometimes feels like divine intervention. A warning for what was to come. Another one was the song, It's Quiet Uptown.
The lyrics, if you don't want to listen. But I promise you should listen. Its the most beautifully written song about loss. I thought, while listening in my car 3 days before that day, tears streaming down my face. This is the most tragic song, a loss and figuring out how to go on without your child. How the husband in the song, haunted, just wants to see his wife be herself again. And now that is exactly what has happened to me. I am living this song. And as I sit in my yard, on my porch swing, I think, its so quiet.
There are moments that the words don't reach
There is suffering too terrible to name
You hold your child as tight as you can
Then push away the unimaginable
The moments when you're in so deep
Feels easier to just swim down
And so they move uptown
And learn to live with the unimaginable
I spend hours in the garden
I walk alone to the store
And it's quiet uptown
I never liked the quiet before
I take the children to church on Sunday
A sign of the cross at the door
And I pray
That never used to happen before
(If you see him in the street, walking by himself
Talking to himself, have pity)
You would like it uptown, it's quiet uptown
(He is working through the unimaginable
His hair has gone grey, he passes every day
They say he walks the length of the city)
You knock me out, I fall apart
(Can you imagine?)
Look at where we are
Look at where we started
I know I don't deserve you
But hear me out, that would be enough
If I could spare his life
If I could trade his life for mine
He'd be standing here right now
And you would smile, and that would be enough
I don't pretend to know the challenges we're facing
I know there's no replacing what we've lost
And you need time
But I'm not afraid, I know who I married
Just let me stay here by your side
And that would be enough
(If you see him in the street, walking by her side
Talking by her side, have pity)
Do you like it uptown? It's quiet uptown
(He is trying to do the unimaginable
See them walking in the park, long after dark)
Taking in the sights of the city
Look around, look around, look around
(They are trying to do the unimaginable)
There are moments that the words don't reach
There's a grace too powerful to name
We push away what we can never understand
We push away the unimaginable
They are standing in the garden
Standing there side by side
She takes his hand
It's quiet uptown
Forgiveness, can you imagine?
Forgiveness, can you imagine?
(If you see him in the street, walking by her side
Talking by her side, have pity)
Look around, look around
They are going through the unimaginable
with love, lissa